Reyneke Smit
Report by Reyneke Smit (Manager: Land & Water Utilisation Division, Firth Group)
After a long wait, our inaugural pivot-irrigation maize crop located at Klipkuil farm was successfully harvested. It’s only been a few weeks since harvesting began.
Although this pilot project involved a rather small 14 hectare portion of land, we are nevertheless very happy with this successful maize crop ‘experiment’ conducted by our Land and Water Usage division.
Harvesting took a mere 2 days from start to finish and we are optimistically happy with the end result. In terms of the yield, we managed an acceptable total harvest of 133.24 tons, which amounts to an approximate 9.51 tons per hectare. For future harvests, we’d like to aim towards a more optimum 11 tons per hectare yield.
At the moment our harvesting team are still busy with gathering the remaining maize cobs by hand—cobs which the combine harvester didn’t pick up. These cobs are processed as feed for the animals at the other farm divisions that require animal feed.
Owing to the successes of this harvest, we plan to expand the size of future maize crops. To this end, we are already drilling for more groundwater at an adjacent site at our Klipkuil farm.